“Tiro is my Moroccan doppelganger demon. To most, Tiro and his friends, parents, lovers, pets, teachers, pimples and nipples – are invisible. I am guilty just the same. I avoided Tiro and the invisibles for as long as I could.” Anonymous, Evil-Spirit Disease patient

Jinn (demons) are first mentioned in the Koran. Born of smokeless fire, they were accorded a central role in structuring and explaining daily events. They are responsible for striking a person, and/or entering their body and taking possession. This often calls for exorcism of the Evil Spirit performed by a healer who is also a circumciser, ritualistic slaughterer, and a teacher.

Jinn may alter one’s consciousness and become a catalyst in discussing archaic and perpetual forces at play in our world. More specifically, I’m interested in:

• inbreeding
• duplicitous leaders and Ted Haggard
• redemption of land over salvation of people
• smoke, mirrors, gritty abstraction
• visible VS. invisible borders
• the living dead
• what does it take to become viscerally transcendent?
• squeeze or sqouzen
• religious xenophobia

Making the covert visible is at the heart of collage making. I use found books and magazines as pigment, texture and surface. This changed the way I view and process images, especially advertisements, in a way that often highlights and exposes the ailments of our society. What is it that we want? What is it that we believe?

When a person is nosy, it means they mind other people’s business. A nose can a serve as a race indicator, or to expose a liar. One day, it might just take off and show up unexpectedly. When pointed up, a nose is a receptor, and when pointed down, it is an invader.

I’ve been using the The Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire and other collections of poems to stimulate and create narrative. Much like collage, those Symbolist references reflect disjointed thoughts, places, and logic.